вторник, 16 октомври 2012 г.

'DRONE THE BALKANS' Days 2&3 (Bucharest, Romania)

13/10/12 Tim Hecker at Bucharest

Total madness, abandonment and desolation. That's how Northern Bulgaria pretty much looks like in the 21st century. I never imagined how do cities like Lom and Vidin look like (or the surrounding) but on Saturday I spent nearly 8 hours around them. My idea to play Bucharest after Belgrade looked so nice on the map, but when we weren't able to cross the Danube through the ferry in Vidin cus it was too expensive, it kinda changed in my head. So in order to cross a 300 m. wide river we travelled nearly 600 kms through the whole country. Okay the road was beautiful, but the GPS took some pretty curious decisions and threw us in the lowest class almost non-existent roads between villages. It looked as if we were in the Day of The Dead. The people we saw on the road were no more than 10. It quickly got dark and it didn't help to improve the feeling. Our first plan was to arrive in Bucharest around 18, what actually happened is that we arrived around 23 and something. I was kinda nervous and annoyed cus I made Iulia wait for me for over 5 hours, but pretty much nothing you can do. You travel in Bulgaria, says it all. However it's 23:30 we're in front of the Control club, she runs out of the venue saying Tim Hecker had just started playing. Yes, Tim Hecker live. I get into the venue, the bouncers are so nice they even want to give me change when I pay the entrance in euro. Few moments I'm in the hall. Hecker plays in total darkness and so does sound his music. Shattering basses, layers of drones, subtle melodies and relentless vibrations spread through our bodies. One of those gigs that feel like 5 minutes and they totally are not. After the show we go on a quick hunt for someone awesome enough to host 4 people cus our plans changed last minute. However like a gift from Satan appears Malina, an awesome girl who let us use her place the next two days. So we go to look for it. Bucharest is too complicated for us so it takes us some. However around 3 o'clock we're there. Showered, fed and with Tim Hecker in our ears. Sleep is awesome, especially with something that huggable.

14/10/12 Mytrip, Valerinne, Environments

After waking up at 12 the world looks way better. Today I'm supposed to play a show. After seeing Hecker I'm actually quite excited so we fool around for few hours at Malina's and Marius comes to pick us. The venue was changed in the last minute so we're playing this abandoned factory next to Gara Nord. It's the workshop of one of the Nava Spatiala guys and it's GREAT. We go there and wait for the people to gather. All guys from the playing acts come and they carry something. An amp or a head or parts of the drumkit. You're playing an ambient/exprimental gig and the hardcore punk diy ethics is everywhere. Soon it gets dark and the show starts. It's my second week in a row in Bucharest and third time I'm on an Environments gig. But this time I finally hear their set in full. And it's great. I'm so booking those guys in Bulgaria. After them are playing Valerinne. They're an instrumental trio with a girl making live visuals. They are really great to see live, their sound is great (maybe because of the DIY heads they are using) and you should download their last album right away! My set this night started quite well, really droning and massive, however at a point I chose to go more rhythmic which people enjoyed but I kinda felt I should have stayed in the drifting sound. However it was cool and diverse. It sucked that we couldn't stay longer after the show, cus this place was so awesome and the people were great. Actually all people I know in Romania are awesome. I don't know how they do it, it's just insane. So a quick drive to Radu's place cus we kinda missed sleeping there, a quick glimpse at his D&D map and then we're back to Malina for an awesome sleep and good things at all. Romania is always such a pleasure. It sucks I won't be there this week to. Big ups and kisses for Marius, Malina, Mihai oh yeah Iulia <3 and every single person we met!!